Carbon-Neutral Oil: Reliance’s First Steps Towards Sustainability
Reliance Industries embarks on its journey to becoming a Zero-Carbon company by 2035. It has sourced the world’s first consignment of carbon-neutral oil from a US-based supplier. After delivering its promise of becoming net debt zero company a year in advance, Reliance Industries is establishing its corporate governance strength worldwide.
With an oil refining capacity of 68.2 million tonnes a year from its Jamnagar facility, Reliance Industries received 2 million barrels of carbon-neutral oil from Permian Basin on 28th January 2021, shipped through the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), Sea Pearl. The supplier of this carbon-neutral oil is Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV). OLCV is a division of a US oil company, Occidental.
In the world’s first such shipment of the energy industry, brokered by Macquarie Group’s Commodities and Global Markets group, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the entire lifecycle of crude, from production and delivery to refining of the crude oil and use of the resultant product will be offset by retiring equivalent carbon credits. Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Macquarie will offset the carbon, which will make this oil carbon-neutral. The offset will be executed by capturing and sequestration of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide via industrial-scale direct air capture facilities and geological sequestration.
The carbon offsets associated with oil extraction, transport, storage, shipping, refining, subsequent use, and combustion were sourced from a variety of projects verified under the Verra Verified Carbon standard meeting the eligibility criteria for the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
Such a way of removing equivalent carbon from the atmosphere is an executable solution towards integrating sustainability. Such industrial-scale decarbonization strategies will attract long-term investments and deliver sustainable environment-friendly products to consumers. Other major Indian companies making long strides toward sustainability are Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, Vedanta, and Tata Chemicals, among others.
Ajitesh Chaturvedi
